ISLAMABAD: Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar and his team will onTuesday defend the performance of Pakistan on key issues highlighted by theFinancial Action Task Force (FATF) related to the measures the country isadopting against terror financing and money laundering.
According to a reportlinkin *The News* on Tuesday, a meeting of the joint working group of thefinancial task force will start today in Beijing, with the delegation fromPakistan focused on buying more time to avoid a black-listing by the bodythat might hurt investment in the country.
The meeting will continue for three days (January 21 to 23) in which the17-member delegation is participating with the objective to defend itscompliance report on 22 major action plan points given by the globalwatchdog to gauge the performance.
Pakistan, in its compliance report submitted earlier, had apprised thejoint group of FATF that as many as 500 terror-financing-related cases hadbeen registered in Pakistan, out of which 55 ended up in conviction in thecourts of law.
“The State Bank of Pakistan imposed penalties on defaulting banks and thestatutory sanctions regime was implemented. The mandatory currencydeclaration scheme was also implemented at all airports of the country,”the FATF was informed.
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The global terror-financing watchdog was also informed that under the newreforms, madrassas were granted the status of schools, where students wouldnow be awarded matriculation and intermediate education certificates.
The country had dispatched its 120-page detailed reply along with annexuredetails of 500 pages to the Joint Group of FATF for sharing progress on 22points.
